On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:51:36 -0800, ray lunder wrote:

Ahoy, I bought a used Dickinson Newport cabin heater and tried it out
for the first time tonight set up on the shop floor. I can't get the
fuel to vaporize. I have the stack and hat on and the tank is about 3
feet above the heater. There's nothing coming out of the overflow
nozzle.

I have one and I really love it! It's built in good ol' Burnaby, BC. The
manual is a bit hard to understand, but pretty good. Actually it's easier
than it sounds.

First, I agree that you might have the superheater upside-down. Apart from
that, this is what's supposed to happen:

First, the flame is very slow and lazy, coming directly from the fuel.
Then the flame raises into the "body" below the ring. It will stay there
for a few minutes, then there should be brief almost-white flames above
the ring. Now, with the valve on 1 (or off) and the fan on, you probably
won't get much more than this. So, at this point turn off the fan and put
the valve on 1, and the flame should slowly change from yellow in the body
to white above the ring.

Once you've gotten there, you're basically "on". I usually run at 2,
unless it's really cold, when I turn up to 3, and maybe add some fan. By
the time you get to 4 you definitely need the fan, and we're talking WARM.

As I said, try turning the superheater over...

druid
http://www.bcboatnet.org

"ray lunder" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:46:30 -0700, druid wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:51:36 -0800, ray lunder wrote:

Ahoy, I bought a used Dickinson Newport cabin heater and tried it out
for the first time tonight set up on the shop floor. I can't get the
fuel to vaporize. I have the stack and hat on and the tank is about 3
feet above the heater. There's nothing coming out of the overflow
nozzle.

I have one and I really love it! It's built in good ol' Burnaby, BC. The
manual is a bit hard to understand, but pretty good. Actually it's easier
than it sounds.

First, I agree that you might have the superheater upside-down. Apart from
that, this is what's supposed to happen:

First, the flame is very slow and lazy, coming directly from the fuel.
Then the flame raises into the "body" below the ring. It will stay there
for a few minutes, then there should be brief almost-white flames above
the ring. Now, with the valve on 1 (or off) and the fan on, you probably
won't get much more than this. So, at this point turn off the fan and put
the valve on 1, and the flame should slowly change from yellow in the body
to white above the ring.

Once you've gotten there, you're basically "on". I usually run at 2,
unless it's really cold, when I turn up to 3, and maybe add some fan. By
the time you get to 4 you definitely need the fan, and we're talking WARM.


As I said, try turning the superheater over...

druid
http://www.bcboatnet.org

Thanks, that's the information I'm looking for.
I called Dickinson today and he said I had everything set up
correctly, including the superheater. He had no idea why it wouldn't
vaporize. It won't get up over the burner ring until it's on 4. Even
then it's trying to establish a column of flame back down to the fuel
inlet about every 10 seconds. On five it burns above the ring
permanently but it's an orange colored flame. There's no flame in the
burner below the ring at this point. You can feel heat if you put your
hand right over the top of the stove a few inches away but it's not
spectacular by any means. On 1 it just swirls orange flames around in
the bottom of the pot. You could get more heat out of a can of sterno.
The guy said if it smokes- not enough air, if it won't go above the
ring- too much air.
I got this diesel from a Shell gas station, I don't know if it's #1,
#2, off road etc. All I can think of is to try and do a meter drip
test. Mine is a 3D so I know it's the diesel model. I was shocked to
see what these things sell for new.
Glad to hear it keeps you warm.

How long is your exhaust pipe and is it straight? You should have at least
3 feet of stack and preferably straight.
Did you clean out the fuel inlet at the bottom of the pot? You take out the
plug from the underside and use a rod.
When I start my stove (which I don't use much), I take out the superheater
altogether so I can see how much diesel is in there. When I have maybe 3/16
inch over the inlet I drop in a small piece of lit paper. If the diesel
catches I put in the superheater, close the door and wait a bit before
letting in more fuel. I think my stove pretty much needed to be run on a
high setting to burn properly and prevent coking. That's with a 4 foot
straight stack.

"ray lunder" wrote in message
...
I mentioned mine doesn't burn above the burner ring until it's on the
four setting and Dickinson said that was wrong. It should vaporize on
one, which is where most people have it set. 5 usually drives people
out of a 40 foot boat so something is haywire here.

Well I took mine completely apart, cleaned out every air supply hole and I
also did the fuel rate calibration thing to check on the operation of the
carburetor. I'm sure it would not burn well on a 1 setting.

"Gordon Wedman" wrote in message
news:Lj4Xh.15393$VF5.9919@edtnps82...

"ray lunder" wrote in message
...
I mentioned mine doesn't burn above the burner ring until it's on the
four setting and Dickinson said that was wrong. It should vaporize on
one, which is where most people have it set. 5 usually drives people
out of a 40 foot boat so something is haywire here.

Well I took mine completely apart, cleaned out every air supply hole and I
also did the fuel rate calibration thing to check on the operation of the
carburetor. I'm sure it would not burn well on a 1 setting.

You mentioned that when its set at 5 it usually drives people out of your
boat.
I am about to install a heater for my next boat. Correct me if I am wrong
but I think that this type of heater has the heat to go up the cabin and
nothing below your belt. I would benefit from your comments.

On Apr 23, 9:34 am, wrote:

I am about to install a heater for my next boat. Correct me if I am wrong
but I think that this type of heater has the heat to go up the cabin and
nothing below your belt. I would benefit from your comments.

That's why you install a fan on the ceiling! In fact, most of the heat
radiates from the chimney, so yes, you definitely need a fan on the
ceiling, pointing down, for optimum performance. Most days I don't
bother turning the fan on: the heater heats my Catalina 36 main cabin
fine just on setting 1.

Another Thing To Do is add a heater-coil (Dickinson will do it as an
option internally, or you could just coil some copper tubing around
the chimney), then pipe the resulting hot water to a radiator, say, in
the forward cabin. If you do it right, you MAY be able to use
convection and not even need a water pump.

druid
http://www.bcboatnet.org

wrote in message
...

"Gordon Wedman" wrote in message
news:Lj4Xh.15393$VF5.9919@edtnps82...

"ray lunder" wrote in message
...
I mentioned mine doesn't burn above the burner ring until it's on the
four setting and Dickinson said that was wrong. It should vaporize on
one, which is where most people have it set. 5 usually drives people
out of a 40 foot boat so something is haywire here.

Well I took mine completely apart, cleaned out every air supply hole and
I also did the fuel rate calibration thing to check on the operation of
the carburetor. I'm sure it would not burn well on a 1 setting.

You mentioned that when its set at 5 it usually drives people out of your
boat.
I am about to install a heater for my next boat. Correct me if I am wrong
but I think that this type of heater has the heat to go up the cabin and
nothing below your belt. I would benefit from your comments.

Well, warm air does rise. Its not really anything particular about this
heater. It kept my 37 foot boat quite warm when it was -10C outside and I
do not believe I used a fan. I was planning on installing a couple of
computer type box fans on a board and mounting this beside the chimney to
blow air across it. The chimney gets hotter than any other part of the
stove and blowing air across it will retrieve some of the heat.
I considered the propane version but my research suggested it would use
quite a bit of fuel. Very convenient though.
My primary heat is a 1500 watt oil filled radiator type heater, about $90 at
Canadian Tire. Maintains the boat roughly 10C above the outside
temperature. Only used the Dickinson when it got real cold. Sweaters are
simpler.